Collaborating on the issue of ocean plastics

Columns - Welcome

Dell Inc., headquartered in Round Rock, Texas, says it has committed to keeping plastics in the economy and out of the ocean, creating what it calls the first commercial global ocean-bound plastics supply chain, NextWave. In the Opening Plenary session at the Re|focus Sustainability & Recycling Summit, the company’s Oliver Campbell, director of worldwide procurement and packaging, shared the steps Dell has taken to process ocean-bound plastics, or plastics collected from beaches, waterways and coastal areas, for use in new packaging for the XPS 13 2-in-1 laptop. Re|focus was co-located with NPE2018: The Plastics Show in Orlando, Florida, in early May.

“Dell is thinking circularly, not linearly,” Campbell said, adding that sustainable materials are the foundation of the company’s approach. “Recycled plastics factor largely into our manufacturing.”

In 2017, Dell used 16,000 pounds of ocean-bound plastics in its packaging. Unfortunately, that is just a fraction of the estimated 8.8 million tons of plastics that enter oceans annually, according to Campbell, who added that 60 percent of this material originates in South Asia. The amount of plastics that enter the ocean is expected to increase to 19 million tons by 2025, he said.

Dell and Lonely Whale formed the collaborative and open-source initiative called NextWave, convening General Motors, Trek Bicycle, Interface, Van de Sant, Humanscale, Bureo and Herman Miller, to address the scalability issue associated with recycling ocean-bound plastics. NextWave assembled these leading technology and consumer-focused companies to develop the first commercial ocean-bound plastics supply chain. Additional supporting members of the group include UN (United Nations) Environment, 5Gyres Institute, the Zoological Society of London and the New Materials Institute at the University of Georgia.

To create a sustainable solution for ocean-bound plastics, Campbell said, the cost point must be equal to or less than virgin resin options for Dell. And that’s what the company has been able to achieve through this initiative.

Dell is expanding its use of ocean-bound plastics to the packaging for the rest of the company’s XPS line this year. In 2019, Campbell said Dell plans further expansions.

The company’s packaging contains 25 percent recycled ocean-bound plastics. Campbell said Dell chose this amount because it wanted to do better than the 10 percent most other companies using ocean plastics were incorporating but give the company room to grow, as well.

Members of the NextWave working group say they are committed to creating real change, to testing the integration of ocean-bound materials into products and to plastics source reduction across their operations and supply chain.

Other companies interested in keeping plastics in the economy and out of the world’s oceans can apply to NextWave at www.nextwaveplastics.org/apply. Whether you’re a brand owner, a packaging manufacturer or a government official, we all have a role to play in reducing ocean plastics. What will your contribution be?

Clean news. No labor.

Custom Content - Brand Vision | Bulk Handling Systems

At Bulk Handling Systems (BHS), we know your material recovery facility’s (MRF’s) operating scenario – from incoming material to your existing operation, costs and markets – is unique. That’s why we don’t push the same solution to all our customers. Instead, we combine the industry’s absolute best technology and foremost experts to creatively attack your challenges. In doing so, we deliver advanced technology with precise and predictable results to make your system profitable.

Our FiberPure™ System is no exception, though it is exceptional, guaranteeing the industry’s best removal of cardboard and other contaminants from the fiber stream. With this system, you will create a highly marketable news product as well as an exceptionally pure cardboard stream while taking on more tonnage and decreasing your labor costs. That’s a powerful combination of benefits from a powerful combination of technology brought to you by BHS, NRT, Nihot and Max-AI®.

Going beyond NIR to target OCC

We immersed ourselves in research to fully understand the challenges currently facing MRF operators. According to our findings, before quality control (QC), the news stream typically contains about 50% news by weight, depending on the region. We also learned that cardboard, or old corrugated containers (OCC), accounts for anywhere from 40-50% of the overall fiber stream by weight, depending on the region.

When purity is paramount, as it is in today’s market, you must attack contamination with the technology that is absolutely best able to detect and eject it. Take the growth of small cardboard boxes in the fiber stream – the Amazon effect – as an example. When it comes to removing these boxes from the news stream, the best technology is certainly not NIR (near infrared) optical sorters. NIR detection is extremely well-suited for some applications, but when it comes to differentiating cardboard from news, it doesn’t provide the full picture. NRT’s ColorPlus™ technology addresses this capability gap in NIR sorters using high-resolution RGB detection cameras. The ColorPlus identifies brown grades and multicolored boxboard at a rate of 15 million pixels per second versus the 120,000 pixels per second that NIR detection offers. This technology is the only way to make a clear distinction between fiber types, and by employing it, we deliver a clean news stream and a highly pure OCC product.

Because we precisely target and capture cardboard from the news stream rather than ejecting it along with plastics and metals, we create an additional valuable commodity instead of another mixed stream. More pure, valuable commodities and less residue? I think we can agree that’s a goal every MRF operator wants to achieve.

All about accuracy

Before removing card from fiber, many of our customers benefit from the positive sortation of fiber from other materials. NRT’s SpydIR® optical sorter is ideal for this application. Not only can it positively eject fiber away from contamination or target contamination, including metals and plastics, it removes them from the fiber stream.

NRT understands that detection and ejection are only the first steps in efficiently sorting material using optics; accurate ejections are meaningless if the product remains uncaptured. The solution is controlling airflow, creating an aerodynamic environment that guides the flight of the paper and cardboard to assure a highly pure result. In combination with NRT’s plug-and-play enclosure, our In-Flight Sorting® technology detects and ejects material after it has left the belt and is in flight, providing unmatched accuracy. Other optical sorters typically detect material on the belt, ejecting the material later. In-Flight Sorting makes all the difference in commodity purity.

But we didn’t stop there. Our air separation specialists at Nihot have partnered with our optical sorting experts at NRT to give In-Flight Sorting technology new meaning. The FiberPure optical sorter combines NRT’s technology to optically detect and eject plastic film with Nihot’s specially designed film ejection hood, pneumatically conveying the ejected plastic film for collection (pictured above).

This solution creates three fractions: fiber, plastic film and other rigid plastics that are ejected but not light enough to be aspirated by the ejection hood.

Max visibility

When NRT optical sorters are combined with BHS’ Max-AI Visual Identification System (VIS), operators achieve an unprecedented level of visibility and control of the sorting process.

We at BHS are working to create fully autonomous and intelligent MRFs, and Max-AI VIS is key to this solution. VIS identifies materials, capturing and communicating this information to other technology in use at your MRF. In the case of the already famous Max-AI AQC (Autonomous QC), Max-AI technology communicates to and directs a robotic sorter. And now we’re adding Max’s groundbreaking detection capabilities to our optical sorters to enhance their capabilities (pictured right).

VIS in collaboration with an NRT SpydIR optical sorter adds another level of detection capability to the machine. When used in combination with a device set to detect fiber, VIS can identify the cardboard in the material stream and instruct the optical unit not to fire on that material. It’s yet another way for a MRF operator to purify fiber, positively ejecting the paper while leaving the cardboard to default with a high degree of accuracy, thanks to Max-AI. Our advanced and proven technology provides our team of experts options; the custom solution we engineer for your MRF depends on your unique scenario.

Max-AI VIS is also a cost-effective way to monitor material composition, employing multilayered neural networks and a vision system to see and identify objects the same way a person does. The technology gives you insight into the contents of the incoming material stream, something that previously could be done only with manual audits. In addition to identifying the incoming material stream, Max-AI VIS verifies product quality or monitors the quantity of recyclables in a MRF’s residue stream.

Reducing labor

The Max-AI AQC-2 completes the “no labor” FiberPure solution with artificially intelligent robotic sorting. Max knows what to target in the same way a person does – through training, sight and thought. The robotic sorters then remove contamination and recover commodities, leaving behind a highly pure news product while using zero manual labor.

The Max-AI AQC-2 features two robotic sorters and can sort on belt widths of up to 72 inches. The AQC-2 recovers cardboard, containers and plastic film and removes contamination to create a clean news product.

A QC sorting position should make discriminate picks without losing valuable commodities. An optical sorter cannot accomplish this, and in some cases is too expensive of an option when commodity loss is factored in. By implementing the Max-AI AQC-2, the remaining outthrows and prohibitives can be removed and sorted without the loss of paper; but, more importantly, without the cost of manual labor. Commodities, including card and plastics, are also captured. Because Max doesn’t take breaks and works multiple shifts, you get twice the productivity with minimal variable cost increase.

This innovation allows MRFs to run longer with significantly lower operational expenses. It produces more products with increased purity, captures accurate data for reporting and adapts over time to the changing material mix without major capital expenses.

When you invest in the FiberPure System, you’re proactively applying a high degree of automation and separation accuracy into your MRF, significantly increasing your quality and production while lowering your cost per ton.

I know you want to achieve new levels of commodity purity without the expense of additional labor. What are you waiting for? Contact us today to learn what a custom-tailored FiberPure System can do for your operation and bottom line.

Although making and filling consumer packaged goods is at the core of NPC’s business, the Lima complex receives a steady supply of materials and supplies shipped in corrugated boxes. The company’s daily operations generate a sizable amount of old corrugated containers (OCC) that would quickly yield a space-cluttering challenge if not baled and stored promptly.

According to NPC Chief Operating Officer James Loughrin, from 2000 to 2013 OCC at the Lima plant was handled first by one small vertical baler, with a second vertical baler and a manual-tie horizontal baler added during that timeframe. “These balers were in operation on two shifts with an average of two employees per baler per shift to operate,” says Loughrin.

In 2013, Loughrin and NPC contacted Ken Ely of Lorain, Ohio-based Harris recycling equipment dealer Ely Enterprises “to review options for a single auto-tie baling unit to reduce baling operational labor costs and combine all baling into one building at our site.”

The company’s new Harris HLO-518 AR50 horizontal baler “eliminated the three small balers from our site and, more importantly, allowed us to move 10 employees from baling into our packing operations,” states Loughrin.

NPC’s subsequent company growth, however, has meant yet more OCC generated onsite, and again Harris and Ely Enterprises were brought in to address the issue. “In 2015, NPC ownership invested in a major construction project to double our manufacturing space, which involved building a separate facility on our campus,” says Loughrin.

“As new business has been added to this new facility, the need arose for a second auto-tie baler,” he continues. “Our second auto-tie baler purchase was a Harris HLO-6110-AR50 horizontal baler.” Loughrin points to “volume capacity and dependability” as reasons why NPC has been loyal to the Harris brand. “Both balers have performed well,” says Loughrin. “The output from the Harris balers with improved bales (in terms of weight and size) has resulted in additional OCC revenue,” he notes.

He also credits his Harris dealer for providing attentive service that assures him NPC made the right choices. “Ely Enterprises has been our primary point of contact on both baler projects, and Ken and his team have earned an A+ rating for their unwavering integrity, excellent technical capability and responsive service.”

Harris HLO balers are built to keep such service at a minimum. They are constructed using a one-piece, side wall design with plate reinforcement to increase overall strength and durability and to withstand everyday wear and tear.

Features - BIR Convention Wrapup

When scrap traders gathered for the 2017 Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) World Recycling Convention & Exhibition in Hong Kong in May of that year, China’s looming import restrictions already had placed threatening clouds over some scrap trading.

Just one year later, however, when some 1,100 BIR delegates convened for the 2018 event, held in late May at the Sofia Hotel in Barcelona, Spain, those clouds had blossomed into a full-blown storm.

In the 12-month interim, China’s scrap import restrictions broadened and tightened. They also appeared to be spreading to neighboring countries in Southeast Asia. At the same time, U.S. President Donald J. Trump tweeted that trade wars were good and began issuing tariffs that provoked numerous responses even as recyclers gathered May 27-30 in Spain.

Middle Kingdom withdrawal

The Chinese government continued to make it clear in the second half of 2017 and the first half of 2018 that it intends to greatly restrict imported scrap, whether as part of an anti-pollution effort or in a protectionist move to bolster its own recycling industry.

Nonmetallic scrap markets have been the most drastically affected. The plastic scrap market was the first and has been the most uniformly restricted, with Chinese regulators frequently referring to such shipments as “foreign garbage.”

BIR Plastics Committee member Steve Wong of Hong Kong-based Fukutomi Co. Ltd., who also helps lead the China Scrap Plastic Association, noted that China used to bring in as many as 7 million metric tons of plastic scrap annually, but that flow has been reduced to a trickle in 2017 and 2018.

The import ban has been enacted to boost China’s domestic recycling industry. Wong said China’s estimated 14 percent plastic recycling rate is low in part because just 2 percent of the nation’s postconsumer plastic packaging is estimated to be recycled.

Plastic scrap traders in other parts of the world have boosted their shipments to other Asian countries, including in Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, where many Chinese recycling entrepreneurs have shifted operations.

Prestige Economics President Jason Schenker

Wong said those nations would nonetheless be unable to absorb 7 million metric tons annually. Furthermore, governments in those nations are increasingly emulating China’s approach in scrutinizing such shipments. He said Malaysia’s government had stopped issuing approval permits for plastic scrap as of May 23, 2018.

Wong described the situations in Thailand and Vietnam as pointing toward similar strict outcomes, adding, “Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea [are] about all that’s left,” but those nations do not have the capacity to accept great volumes.

Committee Chair Surendra Patawari Borad of Belgium-based Gemini Corp. said, “Indian imports will grow, but [from] a very small baseline figure.” He said annual imports of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) scrap into India have grown from 3,000 to 12,000 metric tons per month, but the “main stumbling block is the difficulty in getting import licenses” in India, where just 35 companies have them and no new ones have been issued since 2015.

Imported scrap paper also is facing tightened (some would say unattainable) quality restrictions in China, which was a foremost topic at the BIR Paper Division meeting. In the recovered fiber sector, the primary victims of the sudden policy changes ultimately may be paper and board manufacturers and buyers in China.

Current BIR President Ranjit Baxi told attendees of the convention that prices of old corrugated containers (OCC) and other recovered fiber grades in China have skyrocketed, causing ripple effects in its paper industry.

Baxi, who is with London-based J&H Sales International, said with OCC pricing between $440 and $480 per ton in China, “Chinese mills buy at these high prices” and, in turn, finished containerboard prices in China are now hitting from $700 to $800 per ton.

Baxi said Indian and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) containerboard mills are beginning to take advantage of this situation by shipping finished containerboard to Chinese converters and box producers. “Should Europe be thinking of shipping finished corrugated to China?” he asked.

Per statements by the Chinese government, it wants to steer China toward secondary commodity self-sufficiency, but Baxi said it is unclear how long this will take. In the meantime, China’s paper producers are being pressured by the government to keep their prices in check at the same time they are paying more for raw materials.

Former BIR Paper Division President Dominique Maguin of France-based La Compagnie Des Matieres Premieres said, “I cannot imagine the Chinese market being able to continue in that way. I don’t know how the industry can afford to pay this high price for its raw materials.”

Metallic headaches

BIR President Ranjit Baxi

Global trade barriers also are disrupting metals markets, with China’s restrictions being joined by a U.S.-versus-the-world trade war that appeared to be gaining momentum as of late May. Combined with Chinese restrictions and enforcement, the turmoil was the focus of conversations at BIR metals meetings as well.

Division President David Chiao of Atlanta-based Uni-All Group Ltd. pointed to China’s scrap import restrictions as creating the foremost challenges in the market, joined by the increasing possibility that the measures will be copied in the ASEAN region.

In addition to scrap-specific measures, “The [trade] dispute between the United States and China is escalating [with] retaliation on each other.” Within days of Chiao’s comments, the U.S. also announced it was extending metals tariffs to Canada, Mexico and the European Union, with those countries announcing they intended to respond in kind.

“Taking all the challenges mentioned above,” Chiao said, “it is very possible a new chain of markets is forming.”

A panel of more than a half-dozen traders and processors discussed the swirling changes. Ibrahim Aboura of the United Arab Emirates-based Aboura Metals said, “Free trade and globalization are under dire threat.” He added, “Trading is vital for both sides,” providing “access and options to several different markets.” As of 2018, Aboura said, “Disorder is rampant,” with conditions changing “from one day to another.”

Dawal Shah of Mumbai-based Metco Marketing Pvt Ltd. remarked, “Let India not be another China,” saying instead he and others prefer “a sense of responsibility on the buy side.”

He continued, “India needs to build its own story, not follow one-time events.” He recommended the nation’s recycling industry leaders “improve our own domestic supply chains” and “work closely with government on a regulatory framework” relative to scrap imports.

Mogens Christensen of Denmark-based H.J. Hansen Recycling Industry Ltd. AS said of European recyclers, “We have to find new markets,” which has entailed “several treatment plants” being set up in Europe. To serve the new markets, he said, more “treatment locally” will be necessary.

Panelists at the Stainless & Special Alloys Committee meeting expressed concern that their sector pointed to what a smaller global trading market looks like for recyclers who would prefer to have access to a true worldwide market.

Barry Hunter of Hunter Alloys LLC, Boonton, New Jersey, expressed concern about consolidation within the stainless steel production center, pointing to the existence of “two major mill” companies in the U.S. and Europe.

For stainless scrap to move beyond its home region, there currently are “very limited elsewheres” for it to go, he said. “I think mills today are getting scrap for a discount because of a ‘captive audience’ for domestic scrap.”

An uncertain future

Throughout the three days of BIR meetings and sessions, recyclers and other presenters expressed optimism in the long-term, sustainable health of the recycling industry. That optimism was tempered, however, by the stormy trading climate that has only worsened since the convention ended May 30.

Jason Schenker of Austin, Texas, based Prestige Economics predicted that in “the next 12 to 24 months, tariffs are going to be a big problem” in the metals industry and the global economy overall.

Schenker, who served as a panelist at one session and as a guest speaker at another, remarked that the Federal Reserve and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have acknowledged this potential damage but had not yet revised their 2018 or 2019 gross domestic product (GDP) forecasts downward. “Tariffs are like cockroaches, there’s never just one,” Schenker warned.

For his part, Schenker forecasts 2.5 percent GDP growth in the United States in 2018, but just 1.1 percent growth in 2019.

In addition to worries about the spreading trade war, he expressed concern about an angel investing “hype bubble” in the U.S. and beyond, and market cap values for some tech companies reminiscent of previous bubbles.

A panel of recycling industry veterans and leaders assembled for another BIR session offered several comments pertinent to the future of the recycling industry, and not all of them were gloomy.

William Schmiedel, president of global trade at Sims Metal Management, with U.S. corporate offices in Rye, New York, said Asia’s attention to its imported scrap quality can help raise processing standards globally. He says when Sims Metal Management exports materials, it looks for buyers who process “with proper and correct ways.” Schmiedel continued, “We are going to follow the correct procedures to clean materials in an environmentally sensitive manner. We should do it there as we would in our own country.”

BIR Director General Arnaud Brunet said the woes of 2018 may cause disruption to all and financial harm to some firms, but there is a silver lining. “It’s painful today, but beneficial tomorrow. This is a call for the industry to do better,” he stated. “Quality is the future of our industry.”